


Born Again

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [24]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Ghosts, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 00:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4327800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully would only follow him so far despite the clear path he'd drawn to the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born Again

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 1.21 "Born Again"  
> A/N: I happened on this article about [Endeavour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-59) looking up what day of the week April 19th, 1994 was. Perfect.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

One day, Mulder would feel as if he and Scully were united in their singular purpose, and the next day, they were engaged in some ideological tug of war, feet planted, refusing to move. After the single-mindedness they'd shared closing the book on Tooms, it was jarring to come up against the force of her skepticism. Maybe he should have drunk the root beer as a show of good faith. It was still in his fridge, a daily reminder that someone cared. 

There was so much proof in front of her and she refused to believe. The origami animals, the mutilated dolls, the image in the video from the regression hypnosis: proof positive for those who were willing to put the pieces together. Scully would only follow him so far despite the clear path he'd drawn to the truth. He recognized that he was always asking her to step beyond the boundaries of her own knowledge, but surely she saw that he asked no less of himself. 

It was true that there had been something disturbing about Michelle. It was incongruous to see a little girl wearing the heavy-browed expression of a seasoned cop. The Eves - what were their names, Cindy and Teena - had been friendlier. They'd had better reason to be, Mulder thought. They'd been playing a long game, in which he and Scully had become unwitting pawns. Charlie Morris had nothing to gain from a couple of FBI agents. Fortunately, he had less reason to try to kill them. His revenge had unfolded neatly, one collaborator after the other, and they'd been nearly helpless to stop him.

In the end, the case was listed as unexplained. He noted it in his field journal. Another case for the X-Files, another mystery he might have solved. Fiore was brought to some sort of justice, his sentence less harsh than Barbala's or Felder's. Morris got his vengeance and Michelle got her swimming lessons. Mulder sat back and took off his glasses and sighed. 

She had followed him to the brink of belief but no further. Scully would always still care that their cases were actionable. She was an officer of the law, not a seeker of truth for truth's sake. She needed certainty to put her back against, and some clear way to follow through. The truth was something active to her; it made things happen. Scully still believed it mattered that they could show the world the things they'd learned. Mulder had lived too long as the only witness to the phenomenal. He wished he could believe the world would care. For too many years he'd been Chicken Little shouting legitimate warnings at an indifferent sky. At least Max had read his articles, Max and the other outcasts of MUFON and NICAP. Scully listened, but her lips were pursed in disbelief. 

For all of that, he knew she would come to work the next day and sit and argue amiably with him as they drank their coffee and filed their paperwork (thoughts of Max there too, poring over their expense reports). She would write her monographs about the oddities they'd discovered, the kind of articles that got published in peer-reviewed journals instead of underground rags. Her thoroughness and her methodical investigation, however he chafed under the restraint of her scientific process, had given their work a flavor of legitimacy he'd lacked. He kept a copy of each publication in the back of one of the drawers; like the root beer, they were touchstones. 

She wasn't the spy or the liability he'd imagined at first. The men who'd wanted to send in a Trojan horse to destroy his work from the inside had given him an invaluable gift. They might never see eye-to-eye, but they would stand shoulder-to-shoulder. That was better than a believer who would leave him. And Scully was right this time: it mattered more that a little girl would grow up normal and happy than that they proved that ghosts had been the cause of her mysterious malady and recovery.

He connected to the internet and searched for news of the space shuttle _Endeavour_. They were still aloft, stuck in limbo between heaven and earth. He thought he had some inkling of how they felt. Maybe Charlie Morris had too, biding his time for nine years, waiting for redemption. The winds were shifting; Mulder could feel the change coming. Somewhere above their heads, the clouds were gathering.

 _Endeavour_ would come home. He and Scully would weather the storm. They would marvel at the new images the space shuttle had gathered, and they would keep mapping the shadowlands, cataloguing new specimens like Lewis and Clark until the world yielded up its secrets. Like Michelle, they still had a chance to face their fears.

When he came into the office the next day, there were a few sheets of origami paper tucked under his coffee cup, and Scully's half-smile lingered all morning as she worked.


End file.
